Summon My Heart's Blood
by A Vague Shape In The Dark
Summary: Donna visits Harold and finds that they have had a shared a dream of Laura.


A/N. The diary entry is from The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer by Jennifer Lynch.

* * *

Without means of cover leaves grazed the arches and sides of her feet. Their rough forms fell over another in the scramble to envelope only to, as walked through, be left as they were; alone and dying on the ground. Filtering through their masses Donna closed her eyes, breathing in the redolent perfume of their disintegration. The laden branches surrounding her were tinted in bright oranges and yellows, filtered gold. Air heady, she felt disoriented, strangely warm, but made of silent electricity still. Tracing the collar of her sweater, pulling it, she turned to find Harold watching her.

Under the shade of sloped branches he stood, dressed entirely in browns and greens. Head bowed, the stem of a broken weed was in his left hand and gently he pulled at its fraying end. Leaves fell steadily about him, swaying in slow circles to the grass beneath his feet. He looked to Donna, a crooked warm smile on his face, his hair moving faintly with the breeze.

He was so close. His eyes, the bows of his upper and lower lips; she found herself staring at key points of his face, eyes searching over one feature to another and back again. Without knowing what she was doing, Donna, rather violently, drew Harold closer by placing both hands on his temples, raking forward the hair under her palms. Kissing him with more of what burned within her than she'd ever given anyone before. Together as such they were one. Identical blood and thoughts. Of equal fire.

When Donna withdrew she saw both she and Harold through the eyes of a bystander. She had transformed. She was now Laura, more beautiful than she'd remembered. Harold didn't acknowledge any change though, nor did he let the woman leave his grasp. He pressed his body closer to Laura's, resting his head on her shoulder as though he wished never to leave.

They moved in place, Laura's hand combing through his hair, his hands shyly tracing her body. He near tears, she consoling, teasing. Donna had in her mouth the aftertaste of wine from his kiss and felt the warmth of his touch; his hands moving in circles over her shoulder blades and the streak of bone down her back, though she was watching from another body, another place and time. She wanted those before her to stop, as Harold was causing her to become restless, tense, from being unable to do anything other than watch.

Abruptly the sound of geese crying overhead clouded her mind. Circling, dozens of them called through the skies, awakening her. It took Donna a few seconds to realize she'd been dreaming. Before her eyes had opened she'd seen Laura, now in a long black gown, usher Harold, he also in black, clutching Laura's diary, into the woods, the sky pulsating. There were two images, two realities in Donna's mind, and she fought to determine which was real. The geese were still overhead, making the world seem filled with their cries, while Laura and Harold faded as she tried to follow, and were soon gone.

She looked to the wall of her room, trying to understand. Focusing on orange-gold light, shadows spotted with the outlines of branches wavered as if reflecting off a distant body of water. Donna was confused not only by her dream but by how long she'd been asleep. It was now early evening. She'd meant to rest only a few minutes as it was the weekend.

Laura had appeared with Harold, diary in hand, surely that was a message. Maybe Laura was trying to press the importance of acquiring her lost thoughts and had shown Donna a way to loosen Harold's possessive grip.

Donna sat up in bed, throwing the blankets from her body, and walked to the closet, searching until she found the sweater she'd seen Laura wearing in her dream. It was a beige thick thing soaked in Laura's favorite perfume. Donna had borrowed it one evening while visiting Maddy. She'd taken it as a momento, something to cling to when she needed Laura near. Finding it, she pressed her face in its folds, fighting back tears. Wishing she could draw from the memories trapped within its threads. Live them again.

Slipping the sweater over her head Donna began rummaging through her handbag until she found a compact, a tube of lipstick. Pressing her fingers into brown shadow, staring in the mirror as she smoothed the powder over her eyelids, Donna believed she knew, in that moment, Laura's power. The courage, strength, beauty, and sensuality she'd had forever coursing through her veins.

Donna had seen what she wanted in sleep and, with Laura's aid, would soon have it.

* * *

She crossed her arms tightly over her body, bracing the cool breeze as it blew against her; a storm in its early stages. Donna felt a hint of remorse knowing she shouldn't have left the safety of her house on so foolish an impulse with the sky as dark as it was. _No, _she thought, _that's not how Laura would think. Donna Marie Hayward, use Laura's advice to help her._ Closing tightly her eyes and fists, she pictured a box and placed her remorse in it, locking it away with all the other boxes in the never-visited corners of her mind. She ran her hand over her sleeved arm, wanting to somehow bring forward the Laura within.

Her hair blew wildly in the wind, in her eyes, in circles. Brushing behind her ears loose strands, she knocked on the door of Harold's apartment, glancing over the discarded toolbox, tires and chopped wood outside. The suspended ferns on the porch of the Tremond residence rocked wildly in the wind, the boughs of nearby trees sounded as roaring waves, and, in a moment where silence was present, she noted the frogs were tonight voiceless.

Donna saw a finger she knew as Harold's force open a space in the blinds of the window. Letting loose his grip the panels snapped shut and quickly the door flew open, Harold's face appearing in the veil of shadows within. The room was without light save for the dull flames of scattered candles.

"Donna!"

"Hi. Is it okay if I come in?"

"Yes... of course. You shouldn't even be out."

"The power's off," he softly explained, voice a mixture of relief, from seeing her, and fear. He silently rapped a finger against the frame of the door, waiting for her to enter. As Donna passed she saw that his pant legs were rolled to his mid-calf. His feet wet, one barely touching the floor.

Harold followed her line of gaze and answered the question on her mind. "Oh, I-I hurt my ankle falling off a ladder... I was watering the hanging plants when the lights went out." He smiled, lips parting then closing to prevent the escape of words he thought were better left haunting his mind. Standing beside the door he quickly looked to the night, cowering. A strong wind caught the sleeve of his shirt as he hastened to eradicate darkness.

"Pardon the mess," he said, catching the 'p' and drawing it out. Voice barely above a whisper, he invited her to sit down.

Searching the room, Donna saw the mess he spoke of was nothing more than a newspaper spread under a small basin of water at the base of the sofa. Harold placed his weight amid green pillows, submerging again his feet in warm water. Peppermint scented Epsom salt hovered in the humid air. Sitting, Donna asked if there was anything she could do to help.

Harold, head turning to a side, reached for a nearby glass of wine as if a crutch, and calmly replied that he needed for nothing. When silence pressed he asked, "to what do I owe the honor of this visit, Donna?"

She looked forward, nails ghosting hands, cloth-covered knees. "An impulse. That's all."

"I'm glad you acted on it."

Bending forward, mouth twitching to a grin, she nodded to his swollen ankle. "How long have you been like this?"

"Oh... it happened shortly before you knocked." For confidence he searched the walls, he could smell the spice of outdoors in her clothing. "I'll be fine. A-Are you hungry?"

"No. Are you? I can go in and get you something."

"No, thank you. I ate a few hours ago."

Silence again. Her tongue caught between her teeth, thinking. She watched as his toes created ripples beneath milky water as he, in thought, stared also to the floor. Donna looked next to his cluttered bookshelf, desperately searching for something to dispel her artless attempts at conversing with the awkward young man, catching titles of dictionaries and nature books amongst others, then moved to the endless green of the surrounding room. She wondered what his kitchen looked like, what he liked to eat. How it was that he had so many bottles of varied wines. They must be delivered with his groceries, Donna thought. He had to have groceries, if for no reason other than that he'd told her his orchids required distilled water, something he would need in abundance, and the Meals-on-Wheels dinners were given only a couple of times a week, leaving him starving in the meantime, were he without stock. She felt strange with the presented thought of Harold talking to another a girl, even if only a delivery person. She looked to the door she'd never been through and wondered if he had a window by his bed, and if Laura had ever slept beneath his sheets. Breaking her thoughts, he at length faced her, nodding to his room of plants. "They haven't gotten enough light today. I know they'll make it..."

"...But you can't help but worry?"

He assented, grateful she understood and wasn't making fun of him.

Further silence. Donna suddenly remembered her dream and asked Harold if he would read a passage from Laura's diary as promised. She saw unease wash over his face, but he did as asked, removing the diary from atop a table adjacent to the sofa.

"Would you read from one of her newest entries?"

Harold brought his lip under his upper teeth, agreeing hesitatingly. He opened the diary, turning pages until he came near the end. "Dear Diary, I haven't been writing to you because Dr. Jacoby gave me a pretty hot-pink tape recorder for Christmas. He said that it might help me talk into it. I send him the tapes after I have listened to them myself. I find that even though I'm still very sad that listening to the tapes and all that they say helps me feel that the problems spoken on them are not my own. I would write more often, but with all my work and the other diary I must keep "pleasantly updated," I have hardly any time to be as honest as I am with you. I will write more when I can. Laura."

"James, Maddy - Laura's cousin - and I found some of Laura's tapes. They really haven't helped."

"The diary is the same. Reading it only creates more questions. No answers."

Donna, realizing she was getting nowhere and depressed by Laura's words, looked sadly to the floor until the wind outside interrupted her thoughts. It began to pound against the window, shaking the glass in its frame, startling them. Wind continued tearing into the house with such force all sounded as though it would collapse. Donna, on bent knees, drew closer to Harold, close enough she could feel the warmth of his body reaching out to her. "You were in my dreams," she confessed as the gale died down and trees could be heard creaking in the distance. Donna looked away from him, remembering, and continued, "today. You were outside with me."

Harold said nothing, exhaling only once as he waited. She felt his escaping breath meet her hand and looked to the crumpled pillow under her fingers, then to his outer thigh. "We were alone..."

She saw a change come over his eyes: hope. Acting on this sign she cautiously removed the wine glass from his hand, placed it to her lips and drained what little there was left before setting the glass on the floor. She fell closer to him, hair mixing with his, and pried the knit blanket from the backrest of the sofa, awkwardly pushing it into a bundle where she wanted his head to lay, before lowering him with the pressure of her body. His hand stayed to his chest, grasping for his monocle; tracing its thin handle once found. His features both fearful and wanting, eyes ridden with still tears. She felt the beginnings of waves, currents, flow through his flesh from his core. Watching as his eyes closed she heard his soft rasps of unspoken want as her own.

He moved his head, deepening its rest in the folded blanket. Lips parted, mind lost he in a low whisper uttered the name of a ghost, "Laura". From wherever he had departed he quickly awoke, eyes moving to the darkness where orchids slept. "That's Laura's sweater you're wearing, isn't it? Her perfume." He faded, voice breaking.

This sent a sharp pain through Donna. "Yes," she whispered and began to finger the buttons of his shirt, finding that his heartbeat increased under them. _Why? _she wondered, _why does Laura choose to haunt the hearts of all men?_

She'd seen, as he stopped speaking, a melancholy possess his features. The type caused by a blow that has pierced what resides beside the heart so greatly, that for an instant all life seems to fade.

Harold looked somewhere above Donna, then in her eyes. "You see," he started, slowly, trying to put his thoughts into words, "I had a dream about Laura last night. She made me follow her into the woods. She knew I didn't want to go but, well, Laura was sometimes that way. She'd try to get me to do things..." his face grew dark. "She left me. Only to reappear as you." As he finished the sadness in his eyes disappeared and his face became slightly flushed.

"I guess Laura paid _both_ of us a visit in our dreams," Donna said after a pause, not wishing to elaborate on her own vision. She knew it was selfish but she couldn't help but want to be his main focus. _She was on top of him._ She could feel his every move as undoubtedly he could feel what was coursing through her body as well as her mind. Why should his thoughts wander when the living wanted?

"Yes," Harold whispered, answering her. He was absent, for in his mind he saw the beginnings of a novel yet to be written. His future. Harold believed Laura had in his dream been telling him to trust Donna - and the feelings he had for her. That in Laura's dearest friend he would find the strength to live and love again. Trusting was hard, Laura knew that. But now, with her help, he felt it was right to commit himself to the woman above him. To face her with his soul. Their story to be written with his heart's blood.


End file.
